“The Bear Market Economics Phenomenon” is an observation of Political Economics. Wall Street Admits: ‘We Got Rich Off the Backs of Workers’ thus creating the Bear Market. The Bear Market is America's default war.
The ethic of Wall Street is the ethic of celebrity. It is fused into one bizarre, perverted belief system and it has banished the possibility of the country returning to a reality-based world or avoiding internal collapse. A society that cannot distinguish reality from illusion dies.

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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Top Three Conclusions From Wisconsin Recall Election

Scott Walker’s victory suggests three things: that labor unions don’t
have the electoral clout they once did, big money is playing and will
play a bigger role in elections, and recall fever may be cooling.

It was a big win for Scott Walker and a big wake-up call for Democrats.

The Wisconsin governor survived
a recall effort that received more than a million signatures by gaining
more votes in this special election than he did in 2010.

The
policy implications of Walker’s victory will echo across the country as
governors realize that they can take on public-sector unions and not face electoral oblivion.

The
political implications for the presidential election will be overstated
over the next few days—Wisconsin is still unlikely to break its 24-year
Democratic streak this fall.

But there are plenty of lessons to learn from what DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz infamously called “a dry run” for the general election. Here are my Top 3.

1.
Labor Union Blues: Wisconsin ended up feeling a little like Waterloo
for the labor unions that saw Scott Walker’s collective bargaining
reforms as an existential threat. For all the vaunted Get Out the Vote
operations offered by Big Labor, they were not able to inspire
independents and middle-class voters to rally to their side. The “war on
workers” rhetoric doesn’t seem to be working. Instead, voters earning
between $30,000 and $100,000 went for Scott Walker. It’s not because his
polarizing tactics are particularly appealing—it’s because there are
signs (PDF)
that his reforms are working, contributing to closing a $3 billion
budget gap without leading to layoffs. Simultaneously, labor unions are
coming off historically low approval ratings. People
increasingly understand that the budgetary status quo is unsustainable
and action toward addressing structural sources of state deficits is
being rewarded as a sign of political courage (see also the
controversial but popular New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie). Even one
third of union households ended up pulling the lever for Scott Walker
last night. That’s a stat that should keep strategists in Chicago awake.

The policy implications of Walker’s victory will echo across the
country as governors realize that they can take on unions and not face
oblivion.

2. Big
Money Matters: This was the most expensive recall election in American
history, and Scott Walker’s campaign outraised Milwaukee Mayor Tom
Barrett 7 to 1, $30 million to $4 million. Two thirds of Walker’s money
came from out of state. The total amount spent by super PACs
has yet to be counted, but the overall expenditures are expected to
exceed $60 million. It’s true that fewer than 10 percent of voters made
their decision in the last few days, but every vote counts no matter how
uneconomical the R.O.I., and you can bet that the big-money boys will
take this win as a sign that super-PAC spending works. Republicans
believe they have found a winning formula that can keep even an
embattled incumbent in office, and they’ll try to run the same play in
states across the nation. For Democrats, this resounding defeat just
might be the wake-up call their big and small donors need to start
donating again. To date the Obama-associated super PAC is trailing
Romney’s by a 1 to 4 margin, and 90 percent of his small donors from
2008 have yet to pony up again. What was left of Democratic
overconfidence should have been shattered last night. If Wisconsin
doesn’t get their attention, nothing will. This election is going to be
ugly, awash in a tsunami of sleazy super-PAC ads from both sides. But
unilateral disarmament is not an option.

3. An End to Recall Fever: There were at least 150 recall elections last year
as frustrated voters tried to overturn the results of elections they
didn’t like, on the left and the right. This constant relitigation is
expensive, and ultimately destabilizing to our democracy. Scott Walker
decisively avoided the same fate as California’s Gray Davis in 2003, and
given the all-in liberal opposition in Wisconsin, it might be time to
rethink the reflexive recall strategy on both sides. After all the
effort and expense, Walker is undeniably stronger today than he was in
April when an astounding 46 percent of Wisconsinites
said they “strongly disapproved” of his job performance. Leaving him
languishing with those numbers might have been a wiser course while
focusing on the fall elections and defeating him in 2014. While “an end
to recall fever” may be more a hope than a clear takeaway just hours
after the polls closed, it’s certainly worth careful
consideration. Recall should have a high bar—an outright crime or
indictment for example—but overuse of this extraordinary recourse
ignores the fact that elections have consequences.

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The Bear Marketplace

The Bear Market Dynamic

Our faith in capitalistic institutions promotes the pretense of democracy, while it delivers plutocracy, corporate fascism, and militarism. Similarly, imprudent belief in the American Dream induces people to behave in ways that promote the welfare of those in power rather than the perspectives of those of us struggling to be free. Belief in this discredited notion keeps workers from organizing against their oppressors.

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“Bear Market Economics” is an expression of Political Economics, an interdisciplinary field focusing on the non-market, collective, and political activity of individuals and organizations. Specific fields of inquiry include regulation, distributive politics, elections, corporate politics, public policy, social welfare, scientific and science policy, political participation and collective action, interest groups, constitutional choice, legislative behavior and organization, judicial institutions, bureaucracies, comparative institutions, cooperative political economy, macro political economy, allocation of resources, the environment, ecology, law and economics, business and government, how markets affect and impact the public and the commons. The orientation to these topics tends to be positive rather than normative.

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This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. we believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The American Capitalist Way

Capitalism is preferentially identified by its euphemisms: "Free Enterprise," "market system," "private enterprise." "the American Way," etc. Overt and pervasive partisanship in support of capitalism is not regarded by the American media as an ideological bias negating professional "objectivity" but rather comparable to the serene acceptance of natural laws.